
Glass. 
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ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT 



A DISCOURSE 

ON 'I'lIK DIOATU OF ,-■•■■ - • """ 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

PRESIDEKT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Delivered at Acton, Mass., April 16th, 1865. 

Kepeatep in the Baptist Chirch, "West Acton, June 1st, 186-0, 

BY REV. GEO. W. COLMAN, 

PASTOU CONGinXiATlONAL CHURCH, ACTON. 



BOSTON: 

S. CIIISM, — FKANKLIN PKINTINO nOtJSK 
Xo. 112 Congress Street. 

1865. 



ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT. 



A DISCOURSE 



ON THE DEATH OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



PRESIDE^'T OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Delivered at Actox, Mass., April 16tii, 1865. 



Kepeated in the Baptist Church, West Actox.'June 1st, 1SG5, 



BY REV. GEO. W. COLMAX, 



pastor congregational church, acton, 




BOS T O N : 

S. CHISM, — FKAXKLIX PKIXTIXCi IIOIJSIO 
Xo. 112 Congress Street. 

1865. 



E^ 






Note.— This discourse has been but slightly niodifiecl since its first delivery. 
What was then immediate and present is now past. The change of tense and 
the poem of Wm. Cullen Bryant are all that seemed necessary to adapt it to this 
day of Xational Humiliation and Prayer appointed by President Andrew John- 



son. 



S E K M o ]:^. 



. . . Know ye not that there is a Prince and a great man fallen this day ? . . . 
The Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness. — 2 Sam. 
iii. 38, 39. 

When Massillon came to preach the funeral sermon of Louis 
the Fourteenth of France, he chose these words of Solomon, " I 
communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I have become 
great!"* And, slowly repeating them over, as if to recollect 
himself, " Lo, I have become great ! " then fixing his eyes on 
the assembly in mourning ; next surveying the funeral enclos- 
ure, with all its sombre pomp ; and lastly, turning his eyes 
on the tomb erected in the midst of the cathedral, — after a sol- 
emn pause, he exclaimed, *' God alone is great, my brethren ! " 
Tiie immense assembly was breathless with solemnity and awe. 

With such a thought as this, we come to the house of God 
to-day. Such an occurrence as that which we now lament was 
never before known in the history of our land. It belongs to 
the incredible tales of the dark ages. It is out of place in such 
a land as ours. It hardly entered into our hearts to think it 
miicltt occur; and this has been the very cause which left our 
nation's ruler defenceless, and gave the assassin opportunity to 
execute his plans, and yet to effect his escape boldly. 

Short, hasty, and unsatisfactory were the details of the blow 
which at first reached us, — a blow which filled every true 
heart with sadness, deep and solemn, while it nerved it anew to 

* " J'ai parle en mon occur, et jai dit, Void, je me suis agrandi." — Eccl. i. IG. 



a firmer purpose of loyalty and unconditional patriotism. But 
scanty as were the items we received, their character was such 
as to leave no doubt of the execution of a fearful tragedy, in 
the very heart of the nation's capital, among a concourse of 
thousands of people. Yes, it is true, — the man on whom all 
our eyes have been centred for the past five years, — Avhose 
labors for the public welfare were almost crushing, and, but 
for the happy power which he possessed of casting them off in 
his hours of leisure and amusement, would have crushed him, — 
the man who, calm in the consciousness of an unbending integ- 
rity, a proverbial honesty, met the gaze of the nation by a look, 
not of pride, but of kindly, earnest, faithful devotion to our 
welfare, — the man who had just received, from a grateful peo- 
ple emerging from the clouds of war, the laurel wreath, to wear 
most worthily for another term of years, — the man whose open- 
ness of heart made him accessible to all classes, sO' that every 
citizen had the consciousness that he was his personal friend, — 
tliis man, Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United 
States, fell by the hand of the assassin on the evening of April 
14th of the present year. 

The outline of events that presents itself is the following : 
Over-worn by the fatigues of office, and the importunities of 
selfish office-seekers, the President sought relaxation and relief 
in visiting places of public amusement. Relaxation of some 
kind was absolutely essential to a mind so overstrained. He 
was himself conscious of it ; for while the great battle of the 
Wilderness was yet undecided, he remarked to a friend, who 
knew of his intention of going to the opera that evening, "The 
people will wonder, if they hear of it ; but the truth is, I must 
have a change of some sort, or die." It may well be believed 
that these scenes were but little in his mind, always fertile in 
thoughts for the welfare of the nation in all its portions, — 
whether the Western frontier, the Canada coast, or the status 



of the Freedmen and the interests of Louisiana and other States 
about to return to their allegiance. In company with the Lieu- 
tenant-General, he had announced his intention of being thus 
present on the fatal evening. Circumstances called Gen. Grant 
away, and with his usual complaisance, unwilling to disappoint 
any who might wish this opportunity of seeing the leader for 
whom they had cast their votes, he went with his family to the 
place designated. At about half-past nine o'clock, during a 
slight pause in the entertainment, the report of a pistol was 
heard. It roused but little attention, many supposing it had 
accidentally been fired behind the scenes. In the interval of 
suspense a man is seen to leap upon the stage, to flourish a dag- 
ger, and exclaim, "Sic semper fifranius ! ^' then, darting away, 
is beyond reach, before the audience can recover from their 
surprise or guess his meaning. But soon cries of anguish from 
his family attract attention to the President, who is found dan- 
gerously wounded and insensible. Thenceforward all is confu- 
sion. The best medical help is summoned, but in vain ; and in 
a few short hours the end of earth is reached. jNIean while a 
murderous attack is made upon the Secretary of State, already 
in feeble health, and utterly helpless, — and which, but for the 
Iiasic of the assassin, must have resulted fatally, if indeed it do 
not yet. 

For this act, in all its atrocity, no pcrsoval motive seems pos- 
sible. There was no ivrong to be avenged, no wealth to be 
clutched, nothing to be gained. It does not appear (so f\ir as I 
am aware) that the murderer had ever so much as spoken with 
the man he sought to slay. The only clew to his motives is 
found in his outcry, " Thus let tyrants always perish ! " It was 
the simple act of wanton rebellion — one act — showing us its 
full enormity, and the spirit which actuates it. 

I shall enter on no elaborate disproval of the assassin's charge. 
It needs to be stated only, to evince its fiilsity when applied to 



6 

the late head of the nation. A tyrant, we are told, is " a 
ruler who uses his power to oppress his subjects." Too great 
leniency is never the mark of such a man. But this was the 
most serious fault alleged against the President's personal acts, 

— that he was too fond of pardoning. It was his very leniency 
that permitted open traitors, known to be in favor of secession 

— and among them this very assassin — to walk the streets of 
Washington unharmed. This leniency has terminated in a way 
we shall not soon forget, — has proved itself unsafe, and full of 
danger : let us hope its days are numbered and finished. We 
have heard much of the injustice of arbitrary arrests : to-day the 
nation suffers because the open, avowed, and rabid treason of 
one man through all our conflict was suffered to be unmolested. 

The name of tyrant, then, will never rest with the memory of 
that brave heart now low in dust, The voice of the nation in 
freely intrusting its affairs again so recently to one who had 
never abused them, effectually dispels the stigma — a shot of 
malice which fell harmless from the mail of honesty in which 
Abraham Lincoln was clad. Would that he had only been as 
invulnerable to the wound over which this day a nation weeps ! 

In this act, then, not dictated by any personal motive, but by 
the misguided theories and passions by which this rebellion has 
been engendered, God has permitted the nation to feel the woe 
and wickedness of treason. Treason has stood ready for the 
commission of this act whenever it should find an advocate suf- 
ficiently bold. It has aimed its blows at the innocent and un- 
suspecting before, in its late attempt to fire our cities. It has 
revealed the merciless character of its brutality in that ferocity 
which broke through the barriers which surrounded the bedside 
of the painful sufferer to inflict on one of the chief lights of 
statesmanship deep and murderous wounds. It is the same 
spirit which has made possible the barbarities of Southern pris- 



ons. No talents, no station, no condition, not even that of suf- 
fering, could appeal to its mercy ; for it had none. No tie of 
honor, no tie of religion, binds it; for honor and piety were dead 
names in its heart long ago. If any have been disposed to treat 
it lightly, to be lenient towards it, look at this example, and 
decide now what it merits from you ! 

It is this spirit of treason and rebellion which we judge and 
condemn. For the unhappy criminal we have no severer doom 
than that which is given for a far less aggravated crime. We 
cannot more than execute the death penalty. We cannot descend 
to the penalties of pagan Rome or even unenUghtened Europe 
of the middle ages. We have no rack, no wheel, no crown of 
red-hot iron, no quadruplicate team of horses to tear him limb 
from limb, as was done at Paris to Ravillac, the assassin of the 
King. We are above the infliction of such barbarities, which, 
after all, only add notoriety to the criminal, and even excite for 
him the sympathy of the weak-minded. We have but the death 
penalty, pure and simple, which even the Governor of this State 
must in this case approve, sanctioned as it is by Jehovah's com- 
mand to Noah, the world's second great progenitor, '* Whoso 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; for in 
the image of God made he man." (Gen. ix. 6.) The vengeance, 
hot and furious, which every one sees due, — for which this 
innocent blood calls, — is not ours to inflict. "Vengeance is 
mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." (Rom. xii. 19.) " The 
Lord shall reward the evil-doer according to his wickedness" — 
a measure which we cannot understand, but which He shall fill 
to its uttermost. And let us, rather than desire this work, be 
glad that it does not rest with us to perform. 

In the shadow of this great sorrow — a gloom which makes 
the very heart heavy — a loss which seems the most severe 
which in the person of one man the nation could receive, — 



8 

there are yet considerations which we shall do well to remem- 
ber, lest our hands be weak at the very time when our Govern- 
ment needs the greatest support both of hand and heart. 

Happily, indeed, for us, God has made our dependence in this 
land to rest not on the life of one man, nor of ten men. There 
is no royal line made extinct ; there is no usurper ready to 
mount a throne by a coup d^etat, like that of Napoleon the 
Third ; there is no miUtary leader, wishing that all things may 
yield to arms ; but in the midst of war we have chosen that a 
man of peaceful, not of military training, should be our Chief 
Magistrate ; and none have been more ready in the choice than 
our soldiers, attached far more to native land than to any mili- 
tary idol. Above all, our dependence is not in man nor gov- 
ernment, but in God. Many are the faithful hearts who have 
reversed the foolish action of the Israelites, who rejected God, 
and demanded a king, — who have long since left off to trust in 
princes or in man, and put their trust in God. They have 
asked him to be the Ruler of this nation, whoever might preside 
in its councils, — whether an administration of imbecility or one 
of wisdom and growing strength. And just in accordance with 
their faith in such a prayer will be their tranquillity, and the 
answer of God in accepting this election. So that, to every one 
who asks, " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man 
fallen this day ? " we may reply. Yea, I know it ; hold ye 
your peace ! " It is better to trust in the Lord than to put con- 
fidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put 
confidence in princes." (Ps. cxviii. 8, 9.) And here is a stead- 
fast source of consolation, if we are willing God shall rule our 
nation, as well as rule in our hearts. 

Let it console us, also, that this most terrible blow did not 
come at a time when, as a nation, our very existence was trem- 
bling in the balance. It would then have been hailed with 



9 

fiendish joy by every State in rebellion. Now, however, they 
are so reduced that they can take no encouragement from our 
severe affliction. Then, also, many things M'ere undecided, 
which now will cause no perplexity. Then much more power 
was centred in the Executive, which has at last found a faithful 
repository in the person of the Lieutenant-General. Much has 
been wisely, cautiously, Jirmlxj decided, which left inchoate 
might have involved us in far more serious economic difficul- 
ties. And when we consider the ease with which this act might 
before this have been perpetrated, the preservation of our ruler's 
life amid the tides of party passion, and ugainst the will of 
hostile and disappointed politicians, may well seem to us a gift 
from the hand of One who is wonderful in working — though 
for wise reasons now showing us that ouly his poM'er has stayed 
this national calamity from long ago coming upon us. 

Could his removal have been anticipated by himself, it must 
have been a source of gratitude to our late President that he has 
been permitted to accomplish so much. In no portion of our 
nation's history has progress been so rapid as in the years of his 
administration. And as no one has been more worn down — 
not even the generals upon the battle-field — by the evils of all 
kinds which this rebellion has caused, so no one was more 
ready to welcome the signs of returning reason in those territo- 
ries where anarchy has ruled, — more ready to rejoice in the 
victories of our arms, — to give honor to whom honor is (iue, — 
or to hail the quiet of retirement when all should have been 
firmly reestablished. Sad it seems tliat this might not be : but 
though the voice of the people might call him to his place, it 
was powerless to preserve his life ; no majority that rules or 
governs can say how long its chosen chief shall abide. There is, 
the will of God above the voice of the people. 

Sadly are we reminded by this event that even so death first 
2 



10 

struck clown the human family, — that the first instance of his 
coming was one of violence, a murder, actuated by the same 
spirit of hatred to goodness as this base massacre. Sadly also 
do we remember the death which on that very day, eighteen 
centuries ago, the great deliverer of man suffered on the cross of 
Calvary, because a wicked earth could no longer endure the 
presence of such excellence. And now he to whom an enfran- 
chised race have looked up to as their liberator, their earthly 
savior, next to Him who died for all mankind, has also fallen. 
The brain that planned, the hand that wrote, the Emancipation 
Proclamation, are silent in death. This act of freedom was , 
never the thought of a despot, but of a wise lover of liberty ; 
and in the beneficent results which it has already produced, he 
might well have rested satisfied, had this one work been the 
sole result of his life-long labors and his public administration. 
For so long as the world shall last shall the name of Abraham 
Lincoln be dear to a people who remember their two hundred 
and fifty years of bondage in a land of liberty, and whose hand 
it was struck off from them their fetters, and whose voice it was 
proclaimed them free. 

Personally — and our President was so eminently a man of 
the people, so genial, so approachable, so social, and kind to- 
ward the afflicted and needy, that we all seem to have lost a 
personal friend, whether we have met him or not — personally, 
it is a matter over which every one will feel consolation, that, 
in view of his sudden death, we have the most acceptable as- 
surance of his Christian preparation. It is not often, even in 
this Christian nation, that our rulers are Christian men, A lack 
of courage, and a most fierce opposition around them, combine 
^ to frighten such away from the toils of political life. Many 
there are, who, like our own Webster, sacrifice their once firm 
hold on heaven to gain some delusive earthly popularity or ad- 



11 

vantage. Many, like Jackson and Clay, hide their candle care- 
fully under a bushel, suffering only a flicker of its ravs to light 
up their death-bed. But such was not the case with hiui. I 
am relating nothing new when I call to mind his testimony of a 
change, of which, since he had been elevated to his office, he 
had been the subject. We all remember the unusual request 
with which he left his A\'estern home. And yet many a man 
may desire, as he did, the prayers of Christians, without himself 
being one. His religious experience has been placed on lecord, 
and in his own words. A man, a few months since, who had 
some business with him, in closing, said to him plainly, '* Be- 
fore I left my home an aged neighbor said to me, ' You are going 
to AVashington ; vou will see President Lincoln. Now I want 
to ask you to ask him one question for me. Ask him if he is a 
Christian — if he loves Jesus.' And this question, sir, I would 
earnestly and affectionately now make you." The President 
was touched to the heart, buried his head in his handkerchief a 
few moments, and wept. He then said, " I will answer it. 
When I left home to take this place, I rc([uested my country- 
men to pray for me ; but I was not a Christian then. When 
my son died — the severest trial of my life — I was not a 
Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and looked upon 
the graves of our dead heroes who had fallen in defence of their 
country, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. I do 
LOVE Jesus." Noble profession of faith ! Shall we doubt that 
Christ failed to recognize tlie allegiance of that great heart? 

Nor is a practice conformable to this confession to be sought 
for vainly. Rev. Mr. Adams, a clergyman of Philadelphia, stated 
in his discourse on last Thanksgiving Day, that, having an appoint- 
ment to meet the President at five o'clock in the ^norning, he 
went some fifteen minutes before that hour. AVhile waiting in 
the ante-room he heard a voice near bv, and asked the servant, 



12 

" Who is talking in the next room ? " " It is the President, 
sir." " Is there anybody with him ? " " No, sir : he is read- 
ing the Bible," " Is that his habit so early in the morning ? " 
" Yes, sir: he spends every morning, from four o'clock to five, 
in reading the Scriptures and praying." 

These testimonies are dear to the heart of a Christian nation, 
called in a moment to bewail the loss of its most cherished son. 

So also are those manly traits of character, that frankness 
which seemed to delight in saying, as in his letter to Sherman, 
"You were right, and I was wrong," — a greatness of soul 
unreached by any in his station before, — that tenderness of 
heart which, passing the cold, dry, dreary statistics of the Mil- 
itary Department over, seized upon the fact that one poor 
woman had sent five sons to fight for freedom and lost them all, 
— and sent to her those words of sympathy which are more 
than gold, which are mint-drops of the heart.* So is that prac- 
tical wisdom dear, likewise, which aimed not to teach more 
advanced centuries so much as to be sure that he brought up 
his own to the highest attainable degree. 

These qualities have been well commemorated in these lines 
of Bryant, read on the occasion of the reception of his remains 
in New York City : 



* Peesidext Lincoln's Sympathy. The following letter from the President 
of the United States, Nov. 21, 1864, was received by Mrs. Bixby, a poor widow in 
Boston: "Dear Madam, — I have been shown in the files of the War Depart- 
ment a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the 
mother of five sous who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how 
weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile 
you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering 
to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they have 
died to save. I^iray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your 
bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and 
the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the 
altar of freedom." 



13 

" O slow to smite, and swift to spare ! 
Gentle and merciful and just ! 
"Who in the fear of God didst bear 

The sword of power — a nation's trust — 

"In sorrow by thy bier wo stand, 
Amid the awe that luislies all, 
And spe.ak the anouish of a land 
That shook, with horror at thy fall. 

'• Thy task is done : the bond are free : 
We bear thee to an honored grave, 
Whose proudest monument shall be 
The broken fetters of the slave. 

"Pure was thy life — its bloody close 

Hath placed thee witii the sons of light 
Among the noble host of those 

Who perished in the cause of 'Right." 

But he is fallen this clay — and that, too, by the way we least 
of all should have desired. Was, then, this new crime needed 
to unite all hearts in their hatred of that spirit of treason which 
inspired it ? Were olher victims also needed to show that it was 
the fruit of no personal animosity ? And shall not the advocates 
of this accursed sedition and conspiracy be held to strict account 
for their deeds? In their mad blindness they have stricken 
down the man who would most have given them leniency and 
favor. Their best advocate has died. None remains who could 
so eloquently plead for mercy to a misled people as the tongue 
now silent. And in that silence all hearts hear with acquiescence 
the demand, Let justice now be done. Let all weakness be 
thrown away — and they that have taken and drawn the treach- 
erous sword of cruelty — let them perish by the sword! And 
all people shall say Amen ! 



14 

My hearers, one lesson should be*taught us as we evermore 
think of this occurrence. The person of our rulers is entitled 
to respect and protection. Senseless and loud would have 
been the outcry had this been provided by our late ruler by an 
adequate body-guard. But that spirit which refused him this 
protection is not guiltless of his death. And if the sorrow of 
the nation shall provide a guarantee against the possibility of 
such an awful ocurrence again — just as in future a standing 
army mustt maintain the nation's jiower to punish — and if a suit- 
able degree of reverence for those in whom the hopes of the 
nation are centred is maintained — then will not this evil and 
bitter thing be without fruit of good. 

Finally, let us, while we remember that a prince and a great 
man is this day fallen — while we sorrow and detest the crime, 
and the deadly spirit of rebellion whence it sprung — let us 
still leave thoughts of vengeance to God. Nothing that man 
can do is adequate. Nor has God put upon man to execute full 
vengeance on his brother. Human justice is fulfilled when our 
horror of the crime and approval of the righteous penalty is 
made known. This is but earthly justice, imperfect both in 
deo-rcc and in duratK.n. The Lord shall reward the doers of 

o 

evil according to their wickedness — and it is his assurance their 
damnation slumbereth not ! 

But while men die, God lives on. He has not intended to 
save this nation by men. One by one, as we have leaned on 
rulers and commanders. He has taken them away. He will save 
us — of that we are sure — but it will be by his oini hand — by 
the power of feeble and despised instruments it may be — yet 
so that we shall know the blessing is altogether Itis work. Let 
us unite to ask that a double portion of those excellences which 
especially endeared to us our late President may rest on the 
head of his successor : may the prayers of the nation be offered 



15 

for him ; and may the hand of every man be strong in the Lord 
to execute justice, to stand by the powers that be, and every 
heart invoke the protection of the Great Ruler, whose days and 
whose wisdom shall never know end nor decline. 



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